Bill Includes Citizens Oil Panel for Gulf, Arctic Coasts

By

Jim Carlton

Updated Aug. 2, 2010 3:02 p.m. ET

Gulf Coast residents may get a new tool in their fight to prevent another spill: a citizens oversight council to oversee the oil industry.

A Senate bill mandating such a committee was marked up for floor debate last week, in a move to create the same kind of local community oversight that was established in Alaska's Prince William Sound following the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill.

A provision to set up Regional Citizens Advisory Councils along both the Gulf Coast and Alaska's Arctic coast is included in the Securing Health for Ocean Resources and Environment Act, sponsored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W.Va.), whose Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation acted on the measure Tuesday.

It would mandate that the councils—which give communities the power to question drilling and production activities—be set up with funding from the industry, as happened when councils in Prince William Sound and Alaska's Cook Inlet were established 20 years ago.

The legislative action comes as a delegation of Gulf Coast residents met with their counterparts from Prince William Sound to learn more about how a citizens' council works. Meanwhile, a coalition of more than 100 religious, community and conservation groups on the Gulf Coast on Wednesday called on lawmakers to include a citizens oversight council for their region in offshore-drilling legislation the House is considering.

In meetings over the past few months, hundreds of coastal residents from Louisiana to Florida have agreed that implementing an Alaska-like citizens council on the Gulf Coast should be part of new federal policy, said Jeffrey Buchanan, a senior policy adviser at Oxfam America, an international relief group that has helped organize the residents.

"We think it can open up the line of communications between us and industry, to make sure limited resources get to the right place," said Chris Roberts, a Jefferson Parish, La., councilman who plans to accompany the delegation of about a dozen Gulf Coast residents on the fact-finding trip to Alaska.

Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska said in an interview that he had asked to include the state's Arctic coast—site of the Prudhoe Bay field run by
BP
PLC, whose deepwater well was the source of the Gulf Coast oil spill—because of all the oil activity in the Arctic. The pro-drilling Democrat said the councils could make life easier for industry, as well as help prevent future spills.

"We think if you get these stakeholders involved in negotiations, this will limit litigation," Mr. Begich said.

A BP spokesman said the company wouldn't comment on pending legislation. But officials of the American Petroleum Institute, a Washington-based trade group, said it opposed the citizen councils for the Arctic and Gulf coasts, saying residents of both regions already are consulted by the industry. Moreover, they said, the Gulf council as proposed in the bill would include representatives from certain groups, such as fishermen, but exclude others, such as drilling rig workers.

"The importance of dialogue is something we do recognize. We just don't believe this is the tool," said Richard Ranger, a senior policy adviser for the trade group.

Other provisions of the bill would generally strengthen the ability of federal regulators and coastal states to prevent spills, as well as respond to them. For example, more money would be available to help states take steps like conducting an inventory of where barges and other spill-response equipment are located, while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would undergo an extensive review to see what else it could do to better cope with spills.

The Prince William Sound council was formed in 1989 after negotiations between residents and Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., a consortium of oil companies that includes BP. The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 made the council there and in Cook Inlet near Anchorage a requirement, and stipulated that industry had to fund them. The Prince William Sound council has a budget of about $3 million a year. The councils use the money, in part, to conduct technical studies and other industry and regulatory oversight.

While its recommendations are nonbinding, the Alaska council has helped implement new safeguards, including expanded tugboat escorts of oil-laden tankers in Prince William Sound and construction of a facility to capture potentially flammable vapors at crude-loading docks in Valdez. The oil is shipped to Valdez via the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which is operated, like the terminal, by Alyeska. Alaska residents have tried, but so far failed, to get another citizens' council set up for the pipeline itself, which has experienced some integrity and maintenance problems in recent years.

Alyeska spokeswoman Michelle Egan said that the consortium respected "the advisory role" the council has played in Prince William Sound, but that Alyeska has made numerous safety improvements without prompting from the group. She said Alyeska doesn't believe a separate council is necessary for the pipeline, because it has more state and federal oversight than the other facilities the consortium operates in Alaska.

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